Walking on Thin Ice
by That Selim
Summary: After surrendering his life to save Momochi Zabuza, Haku's promised salvation is delivered by the demonic shadow of Uchiha Madara. Ultimately persuaded to join his cause, Haku is recruited in to Akatsuki, and is calculatingly partnered with...


It was pitch black, but I was alive. Or, at least, my lungs were still breathing… and I had always assumed there would be no lungs in the next life. However, that begged the question: why were my lungs still functioning? I had been driven through by an advanced _Raiton_ technique by the copycat ninja.

"_Zabuza_?" I called out halfheartedly. Silence answered back. I sat up, expecting pain, but I discovered that the enormous hole in my chest was no longer present in any way, shape, or form. My body was in _perfect_ condition.

The gravel on the ground alerted me to the fact that I was in a cave. Zabuza must have brought me here after killing those leaf ninjas. But how had he saved me? I released my mind, extending my sensitive chakras out in every direction.

I was thankful, once again, for being blessed with sensitive chakra and being able to extend it in incredibly thin layers, for hundreds of feet in all directions, and pick up all life and objects... Zabuza called it a rare sensory ability among ninja, which made me an even more valuable tool.

I quickly found that there was a large, elegantly shaped object in the center of the room that was alive, but dead. There was no _physical_ energy within it, but the _spiritual_ energy was terrifying. Even more, _far more_ so, actually, than the red chakra the blonde Leaf ninja, Uzamaki Naruto, had released.

As frightening as the object felt, morbid curiosity incited me to observe it with my other senses. I walked towards it, using my chakras to avoid the random, jutting rocks in the floor. As I approached, the statue's energy shifted ever so slightly...

"Good morning, beautiful!" a fun-loving voice spoke out from the darkness, startling me. The owner of the voice had just _appeared_ within my sensory field, its chakra was incredibly _potent_, and the goofy tone of voice did not fit with the horrifying power it possessed.

"Where is Zabuza?" I asked blankly.

"Momochi Zabuza has, unfortunately, passed on in to the next life… while you live."

I knife went through my heart. He had gone on _without me_?

"How am I alive?" my voice broke with anger, and hurt.

"My underling brought you back with his Dōjutsu." His voice became serious, and dark. It was fitting for his chakra."

How funny: an eye technique had brought me back? That was ironic considering that I had just murdered the last possessor of the most powerful bloodline…

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I told him to," the powerful man stated blankly, "I have use for you."

"And if I refuse?" My voice was flat; I felt dead.

"You won't. You need a purpose to breathe, we all do, and my purpose is the most benevolent there is."

"Benevolent?" I questioned once more... the man's chakra was anything **but** benevolent.

"Do you believe in God, Haku?" He asked.

"No."

"Good, neither do I, but hypothetically speaking, do you believe the world would be better with an omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient being in charge?"

A benevolent God, I realized, wouldn't have left me to die at the hands of my father as a child... but then I never would have known Zabuza, and Momochi Zabuza would have never become the demon that I loved. "I don't know." I finally answered, "There would be no misery, no hunger, no murder, this is true... but there would be no elation, no salvation... and no rebirthings."

The man was silent, but I could feel his chakra prickling my mind, not forcefully, no, he wasn't attempting to persuade me. He just wanted to understand me, and my past. "Don't." I warned.

"Haku," he said with harsh gentility, "if God was one of us, the world would be better. I can be God. I can transcend this harsh reality, mold it in to a dream in which I will be able to do anything! But I need your help."

I laughed, "Someone with chakra such as yours doesn't need anyone." My voice was bitter, "you've always been talented, powerful, and most of all: alone. I can _feel_ it."

He took a step nearer, though I could not see it in the darkness, and I felt his hand touch my shoulder lightly. "Haku, I have been where you are. Your entire world was just taken from you by Konoha, and the Senju. I loved once. I belonged once. My family, my brother—they were my life. But you can't feel it anymore, even for one as sensitive as yourself, because I lost it all over a century ago. It left a hole."

There was silence before he continued, "that hole is in you now. Let me tell you from experience, experience that took me over one hundred years to understand: you can either fill it with murder and hatred, or you can fill it with a dream grander than yourself. Share my dream, Haku, and fill the hole. In my world, Zabuza will be there."

The last line shook my core. "An illusion of Zabuza you mean…" I corrected, the uncharacteristic bitterness yet again breaking in to my generally carefully maintained, monotonous voice.

"An 'illusion' is only defined as such because **only** _one_ individual experiences the separate reality. A 'delusion' is when a _minority_ suffers from a separate reality. 'Reality' **is** the illusion, the delusion, that the _majority_ suffers through: I offer you the _absolute_ reality that is far more convincing than the darkness we are within!"

"What would you have me do?" I asked, too empty to argue metaphysics...

It was then that the air around me shifted, a vortex of his chakra surrounding me instantaneously, and I found myself in the light, atop a mountain, staring at the masked man.

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**A/N**: Give me a reason to keep writing this :D

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**Chapter 1**

He told me his plan, his cunning was truly unmatched, even among immortals, and suffice it to say that my prerogative was to, primarily, spend time with another boy, a child, only two years older than myself, that the immensely powerful immortal who claimed to be Uchiha Madara… feared.

I was warped to the rendezvous after briefing, and quickly felt two immensely powerful chakras approach languidly from the east—arriving as scheduled. One of the chakras was larger than anything I had ever felt, an entire village of ninjas didn't possess so much, and the other was a more humble size, but was as unfathomably potent as Madara's, but somehow purer than my own.

"So you're Haku?" The shark man immediately inquired in an extremely disturbing, polite tone as he removed his rice hat to reveal an inhuman face, "I am Hoshigake Kisame, and I must say that Akatsuki robes go splendidly with your mask!"

'Hoshigake Kisame,' a name Zabuza had always mentioned with utter respect, and a healthy tinge of fear... he was the sovereign among _The Seven_.

"Thank you, and it's a pleasure to meet you." I responded emptily, observing his unique aesthetics curiously through my mask (which Madara had somehow repaired.)

He smiled, revealing layered rows of sharp, sawed, shark-life teeth. "Well, since you and the Kaguya boy have been incorporated in to our organization, we're reforming teams..."

"Someone else was initiated recently?" I immediately asked, curious, as Uchiha Madara had struck me as a man who only took those he needed, those that he could manipulate as tools, and loathed all others. What he needed this other tool for was beyond me...

"Yes, Kakuzu is responsible for grooming the bony brat."

He stroked his shark-life face in thought,

"Which means I'm being stuck with… Hidan." he sighed, "Haku, you, however, are to be guided by _him_." The shark gestured to his partner with a sense of absolute respect that transcended courtesy.

The smaller man, no,_ 'he was a boy_' I reminded myself, a mere seventeen years old, removed his hat, and revealed captivating blood red eyes that were chilling to me, and yet appeared absolutely relaxed. I instantly compartmentalized all of his features with the boy I had killed yesterday...

This was Uchiha Itachi, the man who had singlehandedly slaughtered the most powerful clan in the world. Madara's most prized and lethal apprentice.

"Kisame, thank you for your company." He said quietly, and Kisame nodded politely in affirmation, put his hat back on, and walked back the way they had come. Itachi scanned over my form.

"Haku, we have a mission. We're going to Konoha… to capture the Kyūbi."

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